Matt Novak: I don’t know if this person coined the term “timeshare servant” but it’s the best succinct explanation of gig work I’ve heard yet.

I don’t know if this person coined the term “timeshare servant” but it’s the best succinct explanation of gig work I’ve heard yet.

Actually, it sounds like it's working great to me. The price for getting your timeshare servant to drive a single coffee to your house should be $26

Seattle law mandating higher delivery driver pay is a disasterreason.com Just two weeks after the law went into effect, Seattleites had to contend with $26 coffees and $32 sandwiches.

The only part of this that gives me pause is that it's another disability tax.

There has to be a better way of accommodating the disabled.

I agree, but those accommodations have yet to exist in practice. That being said, paying these gig workers a fair wage is a priority, it just sucks that many disabled people are getting fucked over by it.

Yes everyone should be paid a living wage, that is a priority, but if a living wage puts the price of a coffee at $26 I'd suggest that business should fail becase it's not sustainable. Qv many tech bro businesses that never made sense in the first place or 'disrupted' things which already existed.

Yeah I agree 100%

I haven't bought a fancy coffee at a coffee shop in a while, but I'm pretty sure it was under $5. The $26 is probably someone's calculation including delivery fee, etc. I certainly wouldn't order a coffee for $26.

Yes that's the point. If a living wage for the person delivering the coffee bumps the price to $26 then the delivery business should go bust as it wasn't viable in the first place.

The solution is In-House drivers who are employees, on a reasonable salary. I know it is doable because I did it. Plus tips.

Tips aren’t. Solution cause lots of people are crappy and don’t tip

Oh. I guess I wasn’t an in-house pizza driver who was paid by the hour, by the trip and cash tips from customers. I imagined the whole thing.

Surprise, but your personal experience is not enough to set overall policy. Relying on customers tipping generously enough isn’t an equitable policy.

Your reading comprehension is magnificent.

Andre Gorz used the term 'new servant class' decades ago but 'timeshare servant' is a very clever twist journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Crisis and Utopia: André Gorz and the end of work - Edward Granter, Jeremy Aroles, 2023journals.sagepub.com In this paper, we are concerned with the role of André Gorz in the development of the concept of the end of work. We draw from Gorz’s stance on automation, utop...

This entire ecosystem—from food quality / production to restaurant / gig worker to end user—reflects a messy problem of America’s own making. Our expectations & beliefs around convenience, cheap food / labor & caregiving—coupled w/ growing social isolation—makes this about so much more than wages.

I wonder what the alternatives to having other people deliver stuff to you is, and what the spillover effects ("externalities" in econ speak I believe) are.

love this. thanks for reposting @kenburnside.bsky.social

“Timeshare servant” is exactly the right phrase.

Well, most Seattleites didn't "have to" pay out for deliveries, I'm guessing.

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